


Cute

by gnimaerd



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 03:43:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1495300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnimaerd/pseuds/gnimaerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU, Sara Lance brings her new girlfriend over for dinner. Quentin… adjusts. Sara broods. Felicity is cute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cute

Whatever Quentin Lance was expecting, when Sara said, “so, um – I have a girlfriend,” it wasn’t this.

This floating, candy-coloured cupcake hanging on Sara’s arm is… not even slightly what he pictured.

(“A what?” He’d asked, like she’d just admitted to having a cancerous mole.

“A girlfriend,” Sara repeated, gaze coming up defensively over the dinner table. “I just thought you should know.”

He can feel Laurel’s disapproval on the back of his neck like a laser sight – can already hear the tone she’ll get when she scolds him for not being more supportive. And he doesn’t mean to sound so shocked, it’s just that Jesus Christ Sara has been through enough – now she’s… she’s a –

“You’re like a lesbian now, or what?”

“I’m bi, dad,” she folds her arms, “there’s a whole letter in the acronym for us. LG _B_ T.”

“Oh, yeah, right.”

He didn’t mean that to come out sounding so sarcastic).

This girl is younger than Sara. That’s the first thing that throws him off. Not by much, but by enough to be noticeable – enough that they probably weren’t even in college at the same time. Jesus, where did she find her?

It wasn’t that he was necessarily expecting some older seductress or a middle aged, crew-cut stereotype (…except that okay some antiquated part of his brain probably was expecting something along those lines) but… not someone younger. Someone shorter and slighter than Sara, holding her arm and wearing a summer dress, high heels, pink lipstick – glasses.

Why are the glasses throwing him so much? Is it that they make her look even younger? Like a school kid? Younger and vulnerable, almost delicate, next to his daughter who is a steady, solid rock anchoring this cotton-candy cloud of a girl to his front doorstep.

He has to take a second to register that by comparison, Sara, in her beanie, jeans, leather jacket and converse, is the butch one in this relationship.

“Hey dad,” Sara’s smile betrays only the bare edge of her nerves. “This is Felicity. Felicity – ”

“Hi,” Felicity shakes his hand, her grip firm but clammy, radiating anxious energy – pink nail polish the exact same shade as her lipstick, he notes. “Mr Lance, Quentin – Mr Lance – I’ve heard so much about you – good things, of course – nice things – ”

“Okay – ah, nice to meet you, Felicity,” Quentin steps back, “come in.”

He tries not to look at Sara’s hand lingering in the small of Felicity’s back as she guides her past her father.

***

“So – how’d you two meet?” Laurel, bless her, is acting as the facilitator for this supremely awkward dinner.

(Of course their dad has made pork chops without thinking to ask if Sara’s girlfriend might happen to be Jewish. Of course.)

“I work in IT over at Queen Consolidated,” Felicity says, “Sara brought me her laptop to fix one time. Well. More than once. Like six times. One time it had bullet holes in it.”

Sara sees it register in Felicity’s expression that she’s said too much a split second after the words leave her lips.

“Bullet holes?” Quentin squints at Sara.

“It was an old machine I got out of a skip,” Sara lies, smoothly, watching the flush of self-conscious blood creeping up Felicity’s neck. “Wanted to see if there was anything salvageable, for – you know. Spare parts.”

“And… was there?” Quentin asks, patent disbelief heavy in his tone.

“Sure,” Felicity chirps, “the motherboard was intact so the rest was easy.”

“And you… fixed it?”

“Felicity can fix pretty much anything with wires,” Sara pats her leg under the table, “she’s a genius.”

“Well – ” Felicity shrugs, nervously pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

Quentin watches the way Felicity colours at the praise, the way she glances at Sara from under her eyelashes – he sees Laurel catching it too – the brief, warm intimacy between them.

He clears his throat.

“Dessert?”

***

“She’s cute, Sara,” Laurel whispers it in the kitchen whilst they’re clearing up. Felicity is in the sitting room with their dad, fixing his beloved vintage radio, the one he paid too much for on ebay, and has been failing to pick up a single definable note since it arrived.

“Oh, cause you thought I’d pick someone ugly?”

Laurel giggles. “Shush. I’m just saying.”

Sara twitches a plate under the dishcloth she’s using, not meeting her sister’s gaze. “You like her, then?”

“Sure,” Laurel shrugs, “what’s not to like? She’s adorable.”

“Good.”

“Did you think we wouldn’t?” Laurel raises her eyebrows.

“No – I mean – everyone likes Felicity,” Sara waves a hand, “just – you know, I knew it would be weird. For dad.”

Laurel nods. “He’s fine, though, Sara. Honestly. He really likes her too.”

“I just don’t want it to always be – a thing. Her being a girl, and me being a girl. I don’t want it to be any different,” Sara huffs, wringing the poor defenceless dishcloth out like she wants to throttle it, “because it’s not – you know? It’s not. And I like her, she’s great, Laurel, she’s really great – she might be… it. Forever.”

Laurel fights the urge to laugh, because she knows Sara means it, even if she sounds like a middle schooler talking about her first crush – can see the sincerity in the faint line between her furrowed eyebrows.

“Aw,” is all she says, instead, gently squeezing Sara’s arm.

Sara prods her. “So it can’t be weird forever, okay? Dad can’t be weirded out by it, because Felicity can sense stuff like that and she’ll run – she hates making people uncomfortable. And I can’t… lose her.”

“Dad’ll be fine,” Laurel replies, gently. “He wouldn’t be letting her touch his stupid radio if he wasn’t already fine.”

***

"So you’re…" He watches Felicity’s pink nails as she twirls the screwdriver, adjusting wires. "I mean - sorry - it’s a little surprising - "

"Mm?"

"You don’t look like - "

"What am I meant to look like?" Her tone is so light he almost misses the gentle accusation beneath it.

But Quentin Lance knows when he’s being called out.

He swallows. “Is she happy?”

She meets his gaze, steady behind the glasses, doesn’t say anything.

"Do you make her happy?"

"I - yes," she puts down the screwdriver, squares those delicate shoulders decisively. He feels something like respect for her, in that tone - senses a stubborn streak under all that sugar-sweetness. Probably something Sara likes about her.

"Okay, good," he replies, "that’s all I want. Make her happy. She’s not - often happy. These days."

Felicity’s mouth purses, seriously. “I know. But she’s okay, Mr Lance. I promise.”

She pats his wrist.

He supposes that’s as close to reassurance as he can get, but… well actually it’s not bad. There’s some conviction in her expression that he feels he should take seriously.

***

Felicity fixes the radio – at least enough to pick up a station playing jazz and blues somewhere in Poland – and only Felicity could bring with her the kind of magic required to turn a Lance family dinner into a spontaneous dance off.

Sara finds herself twirling around the coffee table as Laurel laughs and fakes a moonwalk like she did when they were kids – Quentin rolls his eyes, but Sara’s sure she catches something genuine under his exasperated expression.

***

“That was good, right?” Felicity’s hand feels warm tucked in against Sara’s elbow – they walk like this a lot, like a kitchy photograph from the 1960s, the girl on the guy’s arm, the city lights behind them. “Your dad’s really nice.”

“Yeah, it was good,” Sara nods, “he likes you. I mean, I knew he would. It’s generally me he has issues with, not the people around me.”

Quentin Lance has yet to really adjust to the idea that the daughter who got on the Queen’s Gambit five years ago is not the one he got back – although he seems to have conveniently forgotten that they had their fair share of issues long before that, too.

“I don’t know – he seems pretty fond of you, you know,” Felicity’s fingers grip her arm a little tighter.

Sara feels her mouth quirk. Felicity’s general determination to see the best in everyone – in everything – is one of the things that makes her so absolutely necessary for Sara’s sanity. She’s the only sunshine strong enough to blow back the shadows left by Lian Yu, if only by a little.

What she hasn’t told her father – what she needs him not to force her to say – is that it’s easier for her to be with women than men, now. Whatever misguided notions he has about exclusively dating guys for the sake of an easier life, every man she touches becomes Oliver Queen’s ghost, and she can’t anymore. She just. Can’t. Felicity is the only person she’s been with since him who hasn’t given her nightmares about the sound of him drowning.

Impulsively she presses Felicity against the nearest wall, kisses her deep enough to make her gasp, like the first time, when Sara pulled her close in the clock tower, felt her trembling through the leather of the Hood outfit.

(“You’re hurt,” Felicity’s shaking hands had gone to the bullet wound in her shoulder.

“It’s nothing,” Sara leant down, kissed her as much to reassure her as anything – realised a split second after it started that this was not the most platonic method of reassurance ever. Realised a split second after that that she didn’t care – that Felicity didn’t seem to mind either, if the little sounds she was making in the back of her throat were anything to go by.

She’d broken away for a moment, eyes widening, her lips wet, lipstick smudged – everything after that had happened in a frantic, intensive rush – mouths, fingers, sweat, blood, grease paint and lipstick. Sara had finally come in a shuddering, sobbing mess, scared the crap out of Felicity in the process – spent the rest of the night promising that no, really, she was fine – she just… hadn’t been this happy in a while.)

“Mm, what was that for?” Felicity asks, momentarily, as she readjusts the glasses Sara has knocked slightly askew. Somewhere behind them a car horn honks, some asshole shouts something that is probably disgusting. Sara concentrates on Felicity’s fingers, stroking the collar of her jacket.

“Oh, I need a reason now?”

Felicity shakes her head, smiles, lower lip caught between her teeth. Goddamn, she’s cute.

“Let’s get you home.”

They make it there, though not all the way to the bed. Felicity ends up on her back on her own kitchen table, floaty floral skirts pushed up her thighs, exposing the edge of some exceptionally lacey underwear. There’s a bra strap coming off her shoulder as Sara climbs up on top of her – Felicity ignores it, breathlessly works on getting Sara out of her jeans. Her hands still shake when they reach the zip, though not as bad as they did the first time they did this.

Sara doesn’t reflexively cry every time they have sex anymore either, thank god. But she feels like she could, as she strokes the hair off Felicity’s face, eases her glasses off her and kisses the indents they’ve left either side of her nose.

“God you’re perfect.”

Felicity smiles, and reaches to pull her down for another kiss.


End file.
